GETTING READY TO MOVE--FINALLY

It is January 5 and I am closing in on my first month, here. It was another fantastically beautiful day--57°, lots of sun and totally blue skies. Andy Panda came to visit me when I was sitting outside having a smoke, being raucous and, clearly, wanting food. I had regular Tillamook beef jerky for him today; you know, the hard, stringy kind, not like the tender beef steak nuggets he scarfed up yesterday. At one point, he got a piece stuck on a tooth and was batting at his mouth until he got it loose. It was too funny. He totally annihilated the hard variety and, then, like yesterday, followed me around whenever I came outside, purring and meowing to beat the band. Ah, the little things in life that are wonderful and, yet, make no sense, at the same time.

Today we found out that we a have small problem in moving to our base in Herat. When there, the team stays at the Five Star Hotel. It’s not a five star hotel; it’s just the name of the place. Probably gets people in there because they think it’s a five star. Anyway, on December 18, 2009, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Carl Eikenberry, announced in Heart that our hotel was going to be the new temporary site of the US Consulate. Like they say on South Park, “Oh, my God, they killed the Five Star!! You bastards!!” Now, we’re looking for a new home and hoping that our security people will approve it. As I said in my last post, I’d like to get out of here and get to the actual training of the Afghan Border Police.

The ABP lost two men today in a shootout with drug traffickers in Kunar Province in Eastern Afghanistan on the Pakistan border and close to the Federally Assisted Tribal Area, a known stronghold of the Taliban and al Qaeda. I mentioned in the last post that the Iranians lost eleven the other day. The traffickers are fighting just as hard to keep their turf as are the Anti-Coalition Militias…it’s s like s second fucking war going on inside the first war. Plus, the Marines, in a joint operation with the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Police (who are trained by another group in our office), seized 4,100 pounds of opium in Helmand Province. And 256 pounds of heroin was seized in another operation. (As an aside, on January 8, the Marines and the Afghan National Police seized 5,100 pounds of opium, 1,100 pounds of opium paste, 50 pounds of heroin, guns, munitions and explosives. I am glad the President gave the military the authority to get involved in this "other war).

Over the past few days, I have been redoing the training module for “Tactical Convoy Movement,” a subject of which I knew nothing about before I started this project. So, I have had to teach myself everything I will teach the ABP trainees. Thank goodness for Google and the Chrome search engine. Hey, Microsoft, if you’re listening: “Google Chrome kicks your ass. It is ten times faster than your ‘new’ slow piece of crap, Internet Explorer 8. It finds more precise sites than IE could ever locate in a year.” So much for a short rant. I was fortunate to be able to locate a number of excellent documents, including several military tactical convoy manuals and papers written by soldiers who have actually led convoys in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I first looked at the convoy training module, I noticed right away that whoever wrote it clearly did so with the thought in mind that he—and only he—knew how to fill in the blanks left by the short, cryptic statements in each particular section. For instance, the page on the parts of a convoy merely said, “Convoy Sections,” and, then, “March Column,” The Serial” and “The Unit.” There was no explanation or definition as to what each of these was.

My feeling was that any trainer picking up this module, even a dumb ass like me, should be able to know exactly what things were and be able to teach the course. I also realized that many ABP trainees cannot read or write and although you can teach by speaking, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” So I found pictures showing the sections of a convoy and another one showing the elements of a convoy. I know that doesn't make sense, but they are two different things. I also found one that shows what vehicles are in the “trail”—wreckers, fuel truck, bob-tails, and the like.

It is January 9, and I have finished the training module on “Tactical Convoy Movement.” I am now working on the module for “Security Operations, Roadblocks and Checkpoints.” Once, again, I know virtually nothing about this topic so I am teaching myself the subject matter and rewriting, essentially, the entire manual. Yesterday, we went to Camp Eggers for our weekly shopping and eating trip. I also went to the barber and got my hair back to my usual buzz cut. It is so much easier to take care of and I no longer need to use conditioner. It wasn’t as nice as the barber at my hotel, but it was relaxing, nonetheless, and I almost nodded out in the chair. At the PX, I picked up a plastic trunk to store things in while I am in Herat and Zaranj since I will not need to have my suit, extra down jacket, dress shoes and shirt, ties, suspenders, etc. You never know when you’re going to an embassy shindig, so I brought these things with me. No embassy shindigs happen in Zaranj and we will be gone from Herat by the time the new consulate opens.

Now it’s “Change 43.” It turns out that our information that the US Embassy would not take over the Five Star Hotel in Herat until March 31, and that we could live there until then, was not entirely accurate. While it is true that they will apparently not physically move in until March 31, they have already taken it over and started renovating it into the temporary consulate. So now we’re looking for a new place to live and people are supposed to be heading up there tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what happens by tomorrow morning. I have started packing the things I won’t take into my new plastic trunk and will have to make decisions about how much and what clothing I take so I have more room for my food supplies. I’m taking enough with me to get through the first week until I get the lay of the land and scout out the local grocery stores.

Today is January 10 and I have now been here for a month. I have to say that it has gone very quickly and even though I have not been doing what I was hired to do, I have enjoyed the work of rewriting the training modules, representing my agency at NATO/ISAF meetings and doing whatever tasks I am given. Our finance people, who were a little confused about where and how to send my pay, finally got things figured out and the request went in today to deposit my first check directly into my account at Standard Chartered Bank, an Indian bank located, here, in Kabul. Hopefully, the funds will hit my account tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest, I will take care of my bills, send money home, get cash, and head for Herat. I will also go to the PX and pick up my new laptop, a very nice Toshiba, since the one I have now is a complete piece of crap and has been nothing but trouble ever since I got it.

Well, that’s it from Kabul and, hopefully, next Sunday’s blog will be from Herat. It looks like the weather in Heart is even better than here, with temperatures ranging from 57 – 67 over the next five days. Yippee skippee.